IP insurance: Can startups afford to defend their IP?

Yeah, thank you, Lisa, for having me.

As you mentioned, I am general counsel at Intellectual Property Ontario, or IPON.

I started working there two years ago, and it has been an incredibly exciting experience to be launching a number of programs that are supporting the Ontario innovation ecosystem, and especially this program that we're going to be talking about later today.

Get into the details of what IPON's doing shortly, because I'm sure a number of your listeners have probably not heard about IPON.

So we'll do that shortly.

But why don't I pass over the mic to Shannon, who's also joining us.

And I'm delighted she can, because she's been working in the IP insurance space much longer than I have.

Thanks, Michael.

And thanks, Lisa.

So my name is Shannon Shannon.

That sounds like I'm speaking a typo, but it's not.

My first and last name are the same.

I am a commercial insurance broker at Navaccord, and I've had a specific focus on intellectual property liability coverage for the last five years and am both fortunate and excited to partner with IPON on this new program that they've just launched.

Nice to meet

you both.

So yeah, Michael, you alluded to this a little bit, but let's talk a little bit more about iPod.

And why is iPod offering IP insurance? And how are they doing that?

Yeah.

You know what, Lisa? We were talking earlier before this call about this David and Goliath framing, and I think that's really helpful.

It's the lens we use internally at Intellectual Property Ontario as well.

So in our world, David is the Ontario innovator that has real rights but limited capital.

And the Goliath in this case is the much bigger company, but not always.

Sometimes it's a competitor.

Sometimes it's a non-practicing entity or what we call patent trolls often.

And sometimes it's just whoever has more appetite and capacity for litigation.